Interesting books, and news items about books and periodicals, particularly with respect to political and social issues. Since May, 2016, many of my larger book reviews have been put on a hosted Wordpress site; so now this blog emphasizes previews, interviews with authors, booklets, large periodical articles, and literary business issues. Note: no one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"!

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

"The Sell" by Fredrik Eklund: But should I really be able to sell anything to anyone?

The subtitle of this book would suggest that it promotes
hucksterism. But, really, this is a book
that tells you how to sell when you’re already in the right field, and doing
what you want to do, and believe in what you want to sell. That raises a question that I will return to.
The book was written with a publisher’s advance, justified by the author’s well
known reputation in NYC real estate and possibly LGBT circles.

The author is a 38-year-old real estate broker in New York
City, but raised in Sweden. His
interests and background are varied (see Wiki). For example, he briefly starred in
gay porn films under the stage name Tag Eriksson. He also invests in IT companies (more or less
following the example of Ashton Kutcher), appears on reality TV, and writes
novels, although it’s not clear yet what his fiction content will be. He also
married a partner in Florida and will have a child by surrogacy. All that said,
sexual orientation really has nothing to do with his sales philosophy, other
than that he believes everyone needs an adult relationship.

Most of what he recommends makes perfect sense. He gives some tips in negotiation (like
creating “urgency”) which Donald Trump has mentioned before in “The Apprentice”
and in Trump’s own book “How to Get Rich”. (Oh, remember, Trump noted in his
book that Troy McClain took one for the team in allowing his legs to be waxes
in an “Apprentice” segment dealing with “negotiation”.) He talks about good health habits. I think
that concern over diet colas is stretching things, but in the distant past,
anybody who said to stop smoking would have been called a “health nut”. I start to disagree when he recommends
spending a lot of money on clothes and jewelry and hair styling, even if you
don’t make a lot. I think you should
save that 10% for your retirement (after paying student loan debt) and buy
expensive clothes when you can afford them (especially to sell somebody else’s
wares). Really, there isn’t that much
difference. I don't think he recommended that bald men get wigs. (Prince Charles looks good in blue jeans just as he is, as far as I am concerned.)

He hints at the "Always Be Closing" idea (in the 2002 film "100 Mile Rule").

I do recall my own work life in the 1972-1973 period when I
worked for Sperry Univac as a “site rep”, mostly at the Public Service site in
downtown Newark. I had inexpensive and
lightweight but mostly conservative suits, in blue, gray, brown, and black, and
one in light green. Remember the EDS
dress code. (He doesn’t mention IBM’s
insistence on stocking garters in the 1950s, which sound prudish, until you get
on “The Apprentice.”) Yet, a number of
months into the job, management decided I didn’t have a “marketing profile”. I transferred to another division, supporting
benchmarks in Minnesota. Eventually I
wound up working for NBC as a programmer and “content creator”, which led to my
long track career.

Eklund’s career is probably not all about just making
deals. In most places, real estate
brokers generally get into developing new properties, which is about “content”. Watch the PBS special on the new Billionaire’s
Tower. Real estate business needs to be concerned about sustainability (he talks about recovering from the 2008 financial crisis) and resilience, especially to physical disaster (floods, earthquakes, hostility). But there is a real lingering
question about the ethics or desirability of manipulating people to prove you
can sell anything to anyone. I really
don’t believe that. My own father was a
manufacturer’s representative for Imperial Glass (now Lenox) and made these
claims. But he sold only (wholesale) to
department stores along the East Coast in pre-Internet days and made his
reputation on great customer service.
Mother helped him run it and do his books. So I learned honest capitalism from my
parents.

Of course, anyone has to “sell” himself. A job interview is a “sales” experience. On
the job, a programmer will need to sell his ideas internally to others (as when
working in a company like Facebook or Google). A blogger or book author will, in some way,
however indirect (for example, by volunteering) need to consider how to “sell”
to potential readers and become known in a favorable way.

What concerns me is more the idea that selling “anything”
can become a career. Consider how
Comcast advertises its sales positions, “Come show us what you’ve got.” To sell somebody else’s work. Eklund doesn’t really talk about cold calling
or door-to-door, and it seems that these modes are becoming less acceptable to
the public, given both the Internet and greater concerns about security. But it is true that our culture is becoming
more resistant to the idea of people approaching others cold to sell
things. Consider how telemarketing (let
alone robocalling) is resisted. Indeed, “It’s hard out here for a pimp”, but
also for a geek.

He talks about how to use social media. His favorite platform is Instagram, and least
liked is Twitter. Facebook seems too
complicated. But modern social media
didn’t really become important until around 2007 (although MySpace had been
around since 2003). But social media has
also made a “double life” impossible (a
major reason the military had to drop “don’t ask don’t tell”). But it also makes it difficult or impossible
to express political opinions in public spaces on a range of topics and sell
for someone else, without creating a conflict of interest. But that issue really goes back to Web 1.0
and the rise of search engines, very relevant in my own “second career”.

Various times, after my own books came out (starting in
1997), particularly after “The Layoff” in the post-9/11 world at the end of
2001, I got lots of calls from companies wanting me to give up my writing and
pimp for them. My own public reputation,
by the nature of arguments I had made to supporting lifting the ban on gays in
the military, more or less made that impossible. Some of the “opportunities” were more
legitimate than others, but the people pushing them really had to believe in
some ideas that seemed way overstated and not very objective.

Links

About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Tracking Codes

Privacy Policy

p> Privacy Policy for billsbookreviews.blogspot.com

If you require any more information or have any questions about my privacy policy, please feel free to contact me by email at JBoushka@aol.com.

At billsbookreviews.blogspot.com , the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to me. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by billsbookreviews.blogspot.com and how it is used.

Log Files Like many other Web sites, billsbookreviews.blogspot.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons billsbookreviews.blogspot.com does not use cookies.

DoubleClick DART Cookie

.:: Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on billsbookreviews.blogspot.com .
.:: Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to billsbookreviews.blogspot.com and other sites on the Internet.
.:: Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following link.

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on my site. My advertising partners include ....... Google Adsense

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on billsbookreviews.blogspot.com send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

billsbookreviews.blogspot.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. billsbookreviews.blogspot.com 's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

Especially for EU visitors: This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. For more info visit https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/cookies/